Singapore (11/3/2013) – More than 20,000 attended the week-long Singaplural event held at various locations in Singapore to celebrate local design. Organised by SFIC in partnership with eight other design associations, the event aims to highlight emerging design trends and educate the public on the role of design in our lives. Lawrence Chong, CEO at Consulus and President of Design Business Chamber was invited to speak during the Session of Insights in Design before 80 participants.
His topic on why designers need to be better entrepreneurs advocated that local designers must embrace the role of business in design or risk being irrelevant. Through personal experiences and case examples, he presented the following concepts to help designers become better entrepreneurs:
- The industry is changing and designers have to embrace the role of business in our daily work even if we may not be business owners.
- Designers need to speak a language that business leaders can understand so that they will be able to grasp the value which we bring in business.
- Singapore cannot claim to be a leading global design centre if we don’t build ourselves into global firms for design.
- Our firms must be open to transforming the way we operate such as having more cross-disciplinary work and considering mergers with technology players to remain relevant.
- There are many pathways to be an entrepreneur; starting up a design firm need not necessarily be the only way.
- An entreprenuer is someone who is driven by purpose and is able to seek a creative solution to resolving challenges.
The presentation was concluded by urging to designers to think like entrepreneurs to be in a better position to shape the future.
